Progress at Good Gardening Videos by Garden Rant

I seem to be passionate about turning people on to gardening and teaching them to succeed at it – whether it’s through writing, individualized coaching, or local activism.

To that end, this past year I’ve had a new and exciting focus – curating gardening videos on YouTube for accuracy and quality and helping people find them. I’m doing that through the educational nonprofit I created – Good Gardening Videos, with its ad-free website, YouTube channel and social media outreach. Here’s a year-end update:

In 2017 I found and hired the fabulous horticulturist and communicator Charlie Nardozzi to find the very best videos available on topics I’m unqualified to cover –  all edibles, and composting, too.

Our collection of curated videos is now 700+ strong and growing.

We’ve got Seasonal Guides – 14 of them! They’re collections of the best videos we could find on particular topics of seasonal interest – like holiday decorating, bulb-forcing and seed-starting this time of year – so that people can find the info they need when they need it.

Good videos showing native plants in gardens are few and far between, so after gathering the best native-plant videos I could find, I guest-posted on a popular wildflower blog to urge advocates to make videos for the cause! (And thanks to Gail Eichelberger for making an exception this once to her no-guest-post policy.)

We’re Getting Sponsors!

Starting with Garden Design and Gardeners Supply, companies with a history of supporting garden communicators are stepping up to sponsor Good Gardening Videos. They see that it’s not just a good cause, but one that’s creating more customers for them.

Your Help?

You, too, can help support gardening education that’s:

• Free online to all
• Evidence-based
• Pro-environment
• Targeted to North Americans (no need to sort through English TV shows)

Click here to donate any amount. Donors of $100+ are credited as “founding sponsors” permanently on our website. It’s tax-deductible. (GGVideos is a 501(c)(3) organization.)

GGVideos is very low-cost, as my work as editor is pro bono. Donated funds go to pay Charlie a modest stipend, and to buy targeted ads on Facebook to reach more gardeners and gardener-wannabees.

 

Questions/Frustrations

How to reach Master Gardeners? They need good videos to further their education and recommend to the public, but how do we reach them nation-wide or even state by state? One obstacle is Extension Universities not wanting to send their residents outside the state for information because it threatens their funding (sigh). And despite our policy of rejecting videos that make claims not based on evidence, there’s the fear that something will slip by us, I guess?

How to reach garden clubs nationally?

Surprisingly, except for a few blogs, the gardening media aren’t telling their readers about this new resource.

And like videos promoting native plants, there’s still a lack of good instructional videos on important how-to topics – like watering, pruning, using rain-garden techniques to slow down stormwater, etc.

We know that more gardening businesses will be making videos next year, and others stepping up their video marketing (thanks in part to Facebook now favoring over other kinds of updates). So we’re helping however we can, including by recommending videographers and good on-camera authorities.

Readers, your suggestions for getting the word out would be much appreciated!

Progress at Good Gardening Videos originally appeared on Garden Rant on December 15, 2017.

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